MAHÅYÅNA THEOLOGY

John P. Keenan

Middlebury College

Mahåyåna theology is a variety of Christian theology. It attempts to under-

stand Christian faith through the philosophical terms of Mahåyåna

Buddhism. This paper will sketch the general shape of such a theology and

present by way of example a Mahåyåna interpretation of the central

Christian doctrine of the Incarnation. This exercise is based on the contention

that the enunciation of Christian faith need not depend upon or always

employ any one particular philosophical approach. Philosophy is seen here in

traditional terms as "the handmaid of theology" (ancilla theologiae ), not as

the overlord of theology (hegemonia theologiae ). Bernard Lonergan describes

theology as combining the general categories of philosophy with the special

categories of faith themes.1

Christian faith very early came to be expressed through the

general categories of Greek ontology, which focused on apprehending the

essences of things and explaining their relationships. Yet the bond between

philosophy and theology was not thereby determined for all time. That rela-

tionship remains doctrinally fluid and historically contextual. However, the

adoption of any particular philosophical approach to the understanding of

faith clothes that faith in those particular philosophical terms and categories,

and tends to engender commitment not only to the faith itself, but also to its

philosophical raiment. An individual raised within the context of the

traditional Christian ontologies tends to defend the philosophical concept of

1
Bernard J.F. Lonergan, Method in Theology (New York: Herder and Herder,
1972) 283-4.

1
efficient causality of grace with as much vigor as the New Testament

teachings. Despite Pascal's caveat to avoid confusing the living God with the

abstraction of the philosophers, such a person may identify philosophic

theism with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and consequently perceive

threats against the philosophic affirmation of theism as threats against the

faith itself, as attacks on God.

I suggest that such a confusion of faith themes and philosophic cate-

gories indicates a failure to appreciate the "handmaid' role of philosophy.

There are of course thinkers who argue for a "Christian philosophy.' During his

illustrious career, Étienne Gilson drew scholastic philosophy and Christian

faith so tightly together that the one seemed necessarily to entail the other.2

Greek philosophy itself was seen as a providential gift from God. Philosophy

thus raised from its handmaid status is elevated from servant to overlord.

This so-called Christian ontology has indeed an illustrious pedigree in the

history of Christian doctrine. The Nicean proclamations were all couched in

this essentialistic framework. One cannot understand the early councils of the

Church without some familiarity with Western metaphysics.

But that is not to say that theology need be indissolubly wedded to

Western metaphysics. The theological world is not unaware of the distinction

between philosophy and theology. Theologies have been constructed upon

different philosophical bases. But, for the most part, alternate philosophical

languages have been adopted only insofar as they do not contradict the

traditional ontological model. Gilson defends that traditional model, the

scholastic philosophy of being, arguing against any attempt to express

2
Étienne Gilson, Elements of Christian Philosophy, (New York: Doubleday,
1960), 5-6 and 11-42.

2
Christian faith in terms of a philosophy of the One beyond being.3 He

contends that the philosophy of being constitutes the truest and most

appropriate Christian philosophy because it aptly and concisely expresses the

basic faith themes. However, this is a contention that may be challenged, for

the themes expressed through this ontological model depend more on the

model than on the faith. In more recent days, Paul Tillich presented a theol-

ogy based on the existentialism of Martin Heidegger, and this was widely

accepted because it still moved within a philosophy of being and left ample

room for new understandings of traditional themes. But the Honest to God

questioning of John A.T. Robinson jolted the basic philosophical context of

Christian thought precisely because it appeared not to honor those traditional

understandings. It would seem that the basic pattern of Christian ontology

remains rather firmly in place in most theological circles today, exercising its

hegemony if not as the actual ruler of the fief, then at lest as the gatekeeper

who excludes outsiders from the manor house.

Yet there is a price to pay. Many of those who are engaged dialogue with

world religions find the Western ontologies unserviceable and seek new

approaches to theological understanding in the light of alternate religious

traditions, because it soon becomes obvious to those who do not share

Western cultural assumptions, that Greek ontology has no privileged right to

interpret the Christian Gospel for peoples from non-Greek cultures. Some of

the cultures and philosophies of the Orient either have no terms into which

one can either translate Greek ontological ideas, or directly refute them. One

cannot do theology in a global perspective by insisting on the hegemony of

Greek ontology. Mahåyåna theology consciously adopts Buddhist Mahåyåna

3
The theme of Étienne Gilson in his Being and Some Philosophers (Toronto:
Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1952).

3
philosophy as its conceptual model, in order to develop an alternate set of

insights into the Gospel meanings. It is an approach that is more open to the

varied approaches of global philosophic discourse.

Mahåyåna thinkers trace the notion of emptiness (Ω¥nyatå ) back to the

original enlightenment experience of the historical Buddha, ¸åkyamuni

Gautama. He stressed the transience of all things and focused on insight into

the fleeting and unsubstantial nature of this world. Nevertheless, later

Buddhists thinkers were driven to pin things down in exact definitions and to

envisage a static world of essences (svabha\va ), knowledge of which would

provide one with a sure path along which to travel toward cessation

(nirvan>a\ ). The various schools of Abhidharma scholastics attempted to

develop Buddhist metaphysics by logical definition and analysis. They

analyzed each element of being (dharma ) and identified its essence,

constructing supposedly exhaustive lists which represented the absolutely

correct view (samagdr>s>t>i ) of reality. Such an examination could, they

believe, guide one's practice toward cessation.

There has for some time been appreciation among Christians for the

richness of Buddhist traditions. Writers like William Johnston explain for

Christians the power and methods of zazen meditation and discipline.4 There

have been Christian Zen masters such as Enomiya LaSalle, who for years

taught Zen meditation to Westerners in Tokyo. Yet these approaches focus on

methods of practice rather than on theological understanding. They take from

the East spiritual method, while remaining quietly content with, and perhaps

disinterested in, Western metaphysics. There is a split within Western

Christian thought between such "mystical, spiritual theology' and serious

4
See the works of William Johnston, such as The Inner Eye of Love: Mysticism
and Religion (SanFrancisco: Harper and Row, 1974) and Silent Music: The
Science of Meditation (SanFrancisco: Harper and Row, 1978).

4
doctrinal theology. These two compartments are not often allowed to overlap.

Serious doctrinal theology moves in a theoretical pattern of ontological

analysis, while spiritual theology is viewed as more pastoral and less

rigorous. Seminars in pastoral practice glory in their distance from arid

theology, while theological conferences tend to disdain the sloppiness of

pastoral or ascetical approaches. While valued for its mystic punch, the

apophatic tradition remains marginal to doctrinal thinking.

The present approach is unlike either spiritual theology or essential-

istic theology. While recognizing the usefulness of zazen methods in the

pursuit of spiritual enlightenment and also affirming the contextual validity

of traditional Greek ontological theology, this paper will attempt to sketch the

contours of a new theology÷ one employing as its handmaid the philosophical

approach of Mahåyåna Buddhism. Mahåyåna theology avoids the usual

distinction between religious practice and theological discourse by insisting

on the ineffability of and need for direct experience, while simultaneously and

rigorously developing doctrinal thinking.

And yet, no theology which is not rooted in the Christian tradition can

hope to express that tradition. One cannot place a Mahåyåna filter over the

record of Christian experience without excluding some aspects of that

experience. The question then becomes which aspects are filtered out and how

central are they to the Gospel message? For example, the Neo-Vedantist

philosophy of India interprets Christian faith in such a fashion that its

concreteness and unique focus of Christ is discarded. Neo-Vedanta has been

quite open to Christian ideas, most recently in the writings of Joseph Camp-

bell.5 It sees the Christian tradition as one example among many of the

5
Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God - Oriental Mythology, ( Penguin: 1982
ed.), 3-34.

5
varied approaches toward the one brahman.. Paramahansa Yogananda in his

Autobiography of a Yogi repeatedly describes the holy men he encounters in

India as Christlike, for all sages are one on the one road toward the summit of

the selfsame mountain of brahman.. He even recounts a personal experience

of contact and encounter with the risen Christ, who confirms the truth not of

the Christian Gospel, but of the Yogi's path.6 This is a Hindu version of the

notion of anonymous Christians, gently and ecumenically incorporating other

faith traditions as less conscious versions of one's own tradition. Mahåyåna

theology does not adopt this approach. Mahåyåna theology does not adopt this

approach. The only elements of the Christian tradition that it excludes are

philosophic notions--specifically notions of essence and nature that allow one

to define faith in exact concepts--while retaining the faith themes which are

central to the tradition. Mahåyåna philosophy is here adopted as a tool for

Christian theologizing not because it is a near cousin of traditional Western

thinking, but because it clearly differs in its basic ideas and terms. It

recommends itself precisely because it is not just "saying the same thing.'

With Mahåyåna's constant focus on the silent realization of awakening and

ultimate meaning, it can perhaps aid in the healing of the Western Christian

mind, torn as it is between its dominant ontological mode of analysis and its

existential need for spiritual experience. Still, as a Christian theology,

Mahåyåna theology grounds itself on the tradition of Christian thought and

experience. It does this by reclaiming the ancient Christian tradition of

apophatic theology as a valid way for serious doctrinal thinking. This

tradition of negative theology has long been present in the Christian

experience, but has all too often been shunted to the periphery of doctrinal

6
Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi (Los Angeles: Self
Realization Fellowship, 1988 edition) 561. Note also the chapter recounting
Yogananda's encounter with his risen guru, Sri Yukteswar, 475-497.

6
thinking because it runs counter to the dominant intellectualist thrust of

Greek and scholastic thinking. When one is intent on defining just what the

basic terms of theological understanding are to be, one is apt to be less than

patient with those who despair of finding any definition at all. Clouds of

divine darkness may, it seems, be all right for the mystic liturgies of quiet

churches, but rigorous theological thinking needs to move in a realm of light.

Yet, it is precisely here that a Mahåyåna approach can be of handmaidenly

service to Christian theology. While maintaining a central focus on the

ineffability and otherness of direct, mystic awareness, Mahåyåna has been

able as well to develop rigorous doctrinal thinking. It can perhaps recommend

itself to our consideration not only as a valid way of theologizing, but also as a

means of reclaiming and restoring the Christian mystic tradition to a central

place within the overall Christian theological tradition. Let us look briefly at

the contours of a theology which employs the categories of Mahåyåna

philosophy.

MAHÅYÅNA PHILOSOPHY

Mahåyåna, the great vehicle of Buddhist teaching, was first articulated in the

Perfection of Wisdom Scriptures , which appeared around the turn of the

common era and which marked the rise of Mahåyåna as distinct from earlier

forms of Buddhist teaching. These texts expressed a doctrine of emptiness

(Ω¥nyatå ) through pithy axioms and conundrums. Mahåyåna teachings

became philosophy in the writings of Någårjuna, a monk scholar who lived at

the beginning of the second century. He developed a philosophy of the middle

path (mådhyama ) and his philosophy came to be known as Mådhyamika. It

is this Mådhyamika philosophy which will serve as the model for our enuncia-

7
tion of Christian faith.7 The fabric of Mahåyåna philosophy is woven from two

main themes: the identity between emptiness and dependent co-arising, and

the differentiation between the two truths of ultimate meaning and worldly

convention. The first theme sketches a Mahåyåna understanding of our

"horizontal' being-in-the-world and relates to everything we encounter in our

ordinary lives. The second theme is "vertical,' and attempts to clarify our

experience of transcendence and its enunciation in symbols and languages. A

brief excursion into these ideas will perhaps be helpful.

The Identity Between Emptiness and Dependent Co-Arising

Någårjuna attacked such metaphysical essentialism as both logically

untenable and existentially ineffective. It was existentially ineffective

because it substituted analytical viewpoints for concrete experience, even

obviating the need for experience by postponing it to an indefinite future. It

was logically untenable because, sooner or later, it involved one in contra-

dictions. Någårjuna’s main work, Stanzas on the Middle, undertakes a refu-

tation of Abhidharma essentialism, at times in excruciating detail. He

proclaims that things are empty specifically of essence. There is no firmly

abiding inner reality that stands under things or holds them in being. There is

nothing in our human experience that one can rely upon to be a stable and

perduring reality. Consequently, there is no fundament upon which one can

establish an absolutely valid viewpoint. It is much better, Någårjuna might

have said, to experience awakening than to know its defining characteristics.

7
Yogåcåra philosophy is not discussed in this brief paper, but it too figures
prominently in Mahåyåna theology by providing insight into a critical
philosophy of consciousness, both defiled and purified. See John P. Keenan,
"The Intent and Structure of Yogåcåra Philosophy - Its Relevance for Modern
Religious Thought,' The Annual Memoirs of Øtani University Shin Buddhist
Comprehensive Research Institute, 4 (1986)÷ 41-60.

8
Mådhyamika is then a radical devaluation, not only of the Abdhidharma

versions of essentialism, but also of any philosophy of being which is predi-

cated on the existence of stable and perduring essences in things and which

bases its affirmations on the mental appropriation and definition of those

essences. One is left in a world without support for human clinging. There are

no philosophical refuges from the constant and radical contingency of our

lives.

Yet, Mahåyåna philosophy is not nihilism. It is not a negation of being

in all senses whatsoever. The Mådhyamika critique is aimed at essentialist

views of being and the false security they provide. In their suchness, things

present themselves to us not as essential entities, but as transient, inter-

related phenomena dependent on a host of other causes and conditions.

Empty of essence, things arise in synergy with, and dependent upon, other

things. The flip side of emptiness, then, is this doctrine of the dependent co-

arising (prat∆tya-samutpåda ) of all beings. The two notions are convertible,

presenting aspects of the same insight into the essence-free being of beings.

The emptiness of beings entails, and is identical with, their dependent co-

arising. They arise interdependently in virtue of their emptiness. In a manner

not dissimilar to present understandings of our interdependent environment

each element of which relies on a host of other elements, dependent co-arising

describes the field of our total experience and issues in the call not only for the

non-discriminative wisdom of emptiness to perceive the essence-free

transience of all things, but also for a discriminative wisdom to understand

that which co-arises dependently and to engage oneself again in the world to

carry out the tasks of compassion.

9
The Differentiation of the Truths of Ultimate Meaning and Worldly Conven-
tion
The second theme of Mådhyamika philosophy treats our awareness of

transcendence and how it is manifested in language and symbols. Because the

essence-free being of all we experience disallows absolute viewpoints, the

truth of ultimate meaning (paramårtha-satya ) remains always ineffable and

beyond definition. It is not itself any viewpoint. There is no prospect here of

mounting to an understanding of transcendence through knowledge of the

things that fall within our more mundane experience, for all things and all

experiences are essence-free. Ultimate meaning, synonymous with awakening

and Buddhahood, remains silent, as a matter of direct, unmediated

experience. This is why, the Mahåyåna scholars taught, the Buddha hesitated

to teach any doctrine immediately after his experience of awakening.

But, of course, the Buddha did then teach, for some forty-five years. His

doctrines were enunciated over and over again in numerous scriptures, and

commented upon in a plethora of commentaries and tractates. The question

then arises as to what the relationship of all these verbal pronouncements is

to the silence of ultimate awakening. To the Abhidharmists, with their

confidence in their own grasp of the essences of things, words represented the

very truth of well-analyzed essences. But for Mahåyåna, with its doctrine of

emptiness, no words ever grasp any essence, for the very notion of essence is

held to be a misunderstanding of experience, engendered through the force of

that primal ignorance which would capture the ultimate in verbal nets and

domesticate it to canons of guaranteed practice.

But it is not merely that the truth of ultimate meaning is empty. For

the Mahåyåna thinkers, all mundane understandings of truth are also empty.

Worldly and conventional truth (saµv®ti-satya ) has two functions. The first

10
and foremost foremost function is deconstructive; it is called "true reasoning"

(yukti ) and operates to uncover the emptiness of all views and disvalue any

claim for absolute viewpoints. This type of reasoning pervades the "hundred

negations and thousand denials' of Någårjuna's Stanzas on the Middle, where

he demonstrates logically how all such absolute claims are invalid. And yet,

this true reasoning of emptiness functions in synergy with a second form of

conventional truth,"correspondential reasoning' (pramå√a ) that corresponds

to the dependently co-arisen being of things. True reasoning leads always and

insistently to insight into emptiness, while correspondential reasoning

constructs contextually valid and conventional models of philosophy and

doctrine. Philosophies then become verbal models functioning validly and

logically only within their dependently co-arisen contexts and only

provisionally, i.e. as long as their context obtains. If pushed, all will implode

under the questioning of true reason and emptiness. Yet, one need not always

so push, for there is a clear need to evolve doctrinal thinking, to teach, to carry

out the tasks of compassion. We always live and think in some particular

language and context. All verbal doctrine, then, is described as a skillful

method (upåya ) for embodying valid and consistent approaches toward

insight. Yet, any conventional presentation remains always completely other

from ultimate meaning. Therefore, in contrast to the identity between

emptiness and dependent co-arising, conventional truth is differentiated and

disjunctive from ultimate meaning, always indicating it as the silence that

lies beyond any language, attainable only through direct experience.

But the differentiation between ultimate meaning and worldly

convention implies not only that conventional statements cannot reach

ultimate meaning. It also means that the truth of ultimate meaning cannot

usurp the valid role of conventional thinking and reasoning. This prohibition

11
disallows an incarnational approach that would "identify' the divine presence

in the world with any conventional embodiment. Such an incursory presence

supposes that ordinarily the divine reality is absent from the world, inter-

secting at some particular point or other. For Mådhyamika, all conventional

embodiments of ultimate meaning are "worldly convention only.' This must

not be understood in a minimalist sense, for it is precisely by covering over

(saµv® ) ultimate meaning that worldly and conventional words and symbols

reveal it as disjunctive from language and totally other. Within an essential-

ist perspective, such an understanding leaves little to grasp and seems to

denigrate the ultimate. But, in Mådhyamika context, it indicates the highest

awareness of the bodhisattva who takes the world as the total focus of

compassionate concern within an ultimately meaningful understanding of

emptiness. Awareness of the totally conventional nature of our words and

symbols reflects a constantly expanding awareness of the otherness of ulti-

mate meaning. When conventional doctrine is most deeply understood, it

leads not to affirmations of its essential validity, but to awareness of the

silence it indicates. Conventional words speak by introducing us to silence,

opening the door not to a vision of God himself, but to an ever-deepening

awareness of the mystery of unknowability and otherness.

These, then, are the two basic themes to be employed in a Mahåyåna

theology. Let us attempt below to sketch a Mahåyåna christology.

MAHÅYÅNA CHRISTOLOGY

The traditional Western christologies have attempted to interpret the

meaning of Christ, both human and divine. Because they moved within the

12
framework of Greek ontology, they were forced to function within clearly

defined notions of what it means to be divine and what it means to be human.

Given the historical context of the Fathers of the Church, the categories of

Greek ontology were by far the best instrument at their disposal. For cultured

Greek men and women, the adoption of Greek patterns of thinking came

"naturally.' They accepted the notion of God which Greek philosophy had

developed in opposition to the anthropomorphic images of the myths. Thus,

they took God to be unoriginated, impassible, and unchanging being.8 Yet,

when one defines God as impassible, the definition of God directly opposes

that of man, a creature who is subject to change and suffering. Early

christology found itself in the quandary of how to apply both terms, divine and

human, impassible and subject to suffering, to the same person of Christ. The

first four centuries of Christian theology witness to the various attempts

somehow to balance these conceptually contradictory notions in the one

person of Christ, confessed in the liturgies to be both unchanging God and

suffering man. The thinking that led to the proclamations of Nicea and

Chalcedon was both Byzantine in its twists and turns, and inspiring in its

final outcome, forging a creedal statement that bent Greek categories to

Christian use. And yet it takes a trained philosopher to unravel these

proclamations.

The issue is far from dead, for modern understandings of Christ are

still formed in terms of this Greek ontological model. The great majority of

Christians, while confessing Christ as both human and divine, fall uncon-

sciously into one or another of the heresies excluded by the early Fathers. In

8
Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition÷ A History of the Development of
Doctrine 1 The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition, (Chicago and London:
University of Chicago, 1971), 2-55.

13
their minds, Christ either becomes God striding through the world, or a man

with particularly divine qualities.

A Mahåyåna christology avoids these problems because, in basing

itself on the doctrine of emptiness, it refuses to define as an essence either the

divine or the human. If things and persons have no essences, they have no

specific differences in light of which they might be defined. Mahåyåna theology

is thus not compelled to do an intellectual balancing act to reconcile such

opposite natures attributed to the same person.

Christ as Empty and Dependently Co-Arisen

The use of the notion of emptiness in christology means that neither

God nor Christ have an identifiable essence for the theologian to define. The

scriptures themselves certainly do not offer any definition of the person of

Jesus. There is no identifiable selfhood (åtman ) beyond the dependently co-

arisen person and his actions which are described in the words of the Gospels,

themselves dependently co-arisen from the concrete conditions of their

original communities.9 The Gospels speak of God and Christ as they relate to

human beings, but do not provide any explanation of just what the divine or

human entity is. They assume that we have a working awareness of both. In

the Old Testament, one learns of the presence of Yahweh through the story of

the people of Israel In the New Testament one discerns the meaning of Christ

through his words and through the events of his life, death, and resurrection.

In fact, God is described in the scriptures time and again as beyond any

definition. He dwells in light inaccessible. No one has ever seen God. Moses

encounters him only in the darkness of Mt. Sinai, in the absence of any

9
Edward Schillebeeckx, Jesus÷ an Experiment in Christology (New York:
Seabury, 1979) 304, 307.

14
mediated knowing.10 All creation is held to proclaim the presence of the Lord,

but this proclamation does not offer any definitive knowledge of what God is.

Rather, it renders us, Job-like, aware of the total otherness of Yahweh, of the

absence of limiting definition.11

The medieval scholastics taught that God indeed is ineffable, but that

he can be analogically known from creation. This notion is indeed a joy to the

theologian, who can, after bowing devoutly toward the unknown God, proceed

securely with theological knowledge and surety. Mahåyåna theology would

negate the validity of such an approach, seeing analogy as but another

instance of metaphor, suggestive and intriguing, but not definitive or

delimiting. All knowledge of God is metaphorical, bending words and images

in striking and disturbing ways. Indeed, the function of doctrine in Mahåyåna

theology is not to communicate a body of information about God, but to

engender the presence of God in our hearts. All knowledge of God is parable,

entailing not acceptance of a given state of affairs in the Godhead, but

eliciting conversion of the hearer within his or her concrete context. This is

perhaps why Paul says that faith comes from hearing, for it can only be

engendered in the concrete situation of concrete lives.

Jesus is empty of essence and presents himself in the New Testament

as unconcerned with his own identity. It is impossible to understand him

apart from the web of relationships that form his life. As Schillebeeckx

asserts, "There is no a priori definition of the substance of Jesus.'12 He is

constituted by being related to Abba in silent awareness and to humans in

commitment to the rule of God on earth. In the phrase of Ignatius of Antioch,

10
The main theme of Gregory of Nyssa÷ The Life of Moses, transl. Abhaham J.
Malherbe and Everrett Ferguson (New York: Paulist Press, 1978).
11
See Nishitani Keiji, "What is Religion," in Religion and Nothingness
(Berkeley: University of California, 1982) 1-45.
12
Schillebeeckx, Jesus, 600.

15
he is "the voice of the Father from silence.'13 He has no identity apart from the

Father. Almost all the descriptive terms applied to Jesus refer him to the

Father. He is the son of God, the word of God, the presence of God, the

sacrament of God among us. One cannot define a sacrament apart from its

referent. The referent of the person of Jesus is not some Greek notion of

immutable essence, but rather the Father who dwells in silence. Still, it is

clear from the tradition that the meaning of Christ is not simply an empty

sign of an empty God. He is not just a mirror of the nothingness of God,

however mystical that might sound. The teachings of Jesus are many and

specific÷ he proclaims the coming rule of God and calls all to conversion from a

deluded clinging onto idols and toward engagement in bringing about that

rule of justice and peace in the world. His meaning, as with all men and

women, is constructed from the course of his life, from what he says and does.

Just as emptiness entails dependent co-arising, so the empty Jesus takes on

significance from his dependently co-arisen life course. He is not distinct in

virtue of a different definition, but in virtue of his teaching, his death, and his

resurrection and ascension. That teaching, just as the entirety of Jesus' life, is

centered around his experience of God as Abba and his passionate

commitment to the rule of peace and justice, to the coming kingdom. His Abba

experience and his commitment to that rule are not merely aspects of his

essential subjectivity. Rather, they are constitutive of his being, the

dependently co-arisen being of emptiness. That is who he is.

The teachings of Jesus are not abstract maxims. If so considered, they

would have no historical specificity and differ little from similar maxims

offered by teachers the world over. Their explosive urgency arises out of their

context, from Jesus' insistence on the reality of God and the need to bring

13
Ignatius, Epistola ad Magnesios 8.2.

16
about the rule of justice on earth. His denunciation of the religious

establishment, content with its grasp of reality, puts him on a collision course

with authority, leading inevitably to confrontation and finally to his execution.

He insists on an alternate understanding of reality and proceeds to

deconstruct the religious underpinnings of the social order of his day. His

opponents are not simply the Pharisees and Scribes, for his teachings reflect

liberal Pharisee ideas at almost every point.14 He even insists that not the

smallest part of the torah (the teaching) will be unfulfilled. But Jesus

inveighs against that religious consciousness that clings to its own ideas, as if

to God. He is no revolutionary set against the Empire of Rome. He advises

soldiers to be content with their pay! His critique is aimed not at a brave new

age constructed according to a new social theory, but at insight into both the

emptiness of social structures and the dependently co-arisen need to construct

those structures with justice and truth. He points to God and to the God's

torah as the basis of justice and peace, and excoriates the professional

religious for their emasculation of God and trivialization of torah . His life

oscillates between silent prayer in desert awareness of God, and teaching in

social engagement for justice and peace.

Thus, when we use the tool of Mahåyåna philosophy to consider the

divinity of Christ, definitions of his dual divine and human natures become

unnecessary, and that divinity may be seen in the emptiness of his personal

identity, whereby he transparently mirrors the presence of Abba, and lives as

14
See Abraham Geiger, Judaism and Its History (1911, Lanhan: University
Press of America, 1985 reprint) 137-152 for the depiction of Jesus as a liberal
Pharisee. More recent Christian scholars concur that the New Testament
teachings of Jesus taken their meaning from their Jewish context, without
presenting anything startlingly new. They take their meaning not from
subsequent Christian apologetic, but from their own Jewish matrix. See W.D.
Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism (1948, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980)
and Paul VanBuren, A Theology of the People Israel (New York: Crossroads,
1989).

17
one with Abba. The confession that "I and the Father are one' is indeed a

description of the person of Jesus, totally open to and reflective of Abba. He is

then not defined in contrast to God. Neither is he to be defined in contrast to

other men and women. He teaches that all may address God as Father, that

all may share in that foundational experience of ultimate meaning, experi-

enced silently and directly. He describes himself as the vine united to all the

branches. The meaning of Christ cannot then be understood apart from the

body of all believers, for that too constitutes his being. That too is who he is.

And that "definition' cannot be limited to his past historical presence in

Israel or by scholastic definitions of metaphysical being, but is an ongoing

temporal indication of his meaning into the future. Christians have always

believed that Jesus is more than an historical figure, that somehow he yet

lives in his risen presence. The doctrine of the mystical body of Christ is not

merely a pious teaching of later Christendom, but, as in Paul, constitutive of

the very being of Christ. The being of Christ, established by his teachings and

life course, cannot be determined apart from our being: he is the head of the

body that we are. Essentialist definitions are not only academic in tone, but

leave us with a distorted image of only the severed head of the body that is

Christ. The traditional essential definitions of the person of Christ not only

miss the point, but can actually occlude the very experience of Christ, both

empty and dependently co-arisen, by substituting Christian theological idols

in place of the human depths of our experience of God in Christ.

This Mahåyåna critique does not necessarily hold that the Nicean and

Chaceldonian teachings are illusory, for in their doctrinal context they

redefined and reconfigurated theological language in the service of Christian

understanding. In fact, in their evolution these teachings provide a model for

the adoption and adaptation of various philosophies to enunciate the meaning

18
of Christ. It does, however, see their validity and usefulness as limited to

their own Greek and Western context and would refuse to affirm the truth of

their underlying philosophical essentialism. A warning should perhaps be

affixed to Western theology when it is exported to the rest of the Christian

world÷Timete Danaos et dona ferentes! Fear the theological gifts of the

Greeks, not because they are unworthy, or lacking in depth or beauty, but

because they are idiosyncratic and culture-bound. As with all philosophies,

these gifts stand in need both of the pure reasoning (yukti ) of deconstructive

emptiness, and the correspondential reasoning (pråma√a ) of cultural

appreciation÷ they must be seen to be empty of any absolute validity and

therefore valid in their particular context.

If, however, we limit our Mahåyåna understanding of Christ to the

themes of emptiness and dependent co-arising, we still have a rather

"Antiochene' description of Jesus, which focuses on his and our horizontal

being in the world. There is more to christology than that, for Christ is the

voice of the Father from silence. He is the word of God spoken to the world.

Therefore, we must also thematize his enunciation of the transcendent reality

of Abba in the world, and for this we turn to an "Alexandrian' consideration of

Christ through the Mahåyåna doctrine of the two truths.

Christ as the Conventional Expression of Ultimate Meaning

The Gospels teach that Christ is the word of God, and the Church

confesses that he is God incarnate÷ that one of the persons of the Trinity has

become human in Jesus Christ. The Mahåyåna theme of the two truths

presents a philosophic understanding of how ultimate meaning is embodied

in concrete, human living. But, while the Western philosophical notions

behind the traditional confessions function in terms of contrasting divine and

19
human essences, the Mahåyåna doctrine of two truths does not function as

two levels of truth which are essentially distinct, one transcendent and one

conventional. It holds that both ultimate meaning and worldly convention are

empty and essence-free. The worldly embodiment of ultimate meaning then

cannot be an incursion of ultimate meaning into worldly convention. The two

truths remain always disjunctive and other. The being of Jesus is not then the

outflow of some divine essence into the human nature of Christ. There are

Mahåyåna texts which speak of "the outflow from the reality realm"

(dharmadhåtu-ni≈yanda ), i.e., the conventional outpouring of ultimate

meaning into conventional symbols of doctrine. Yet, even this outflow is not a

continuous progression from the ultimate to the conventional. Conventional

embodiment is an outflow from ultimate meaning in the sense that it arises

because of awakening and draws its deepest impulse from that awakening--

thus being skilfully in harmony with that ultimate. Reengagement in the

conventional world is triggered by awareness of ultimate meaning. Here,

outflow implies no continuity, for the conventional being of that outflow

remains fully and completely conventional. In christology, this means that

Jesus embodies the divine by being truly and fully human, not by participat-

ing in a divine essence. This is, I think, why Paul depicts Christ as a second

Adam, for he is confessed as embodying the true being of the original human.

In virtue of his abandonment of essence and self-definition, he reflects the

direct experience of Abba and calls others to engagement in the tasks of the

compassionate kingdom. It is in virtue of his identity as dependently co-

arisen that he experiences Abba and embodies the rule of justice. It is as

"worldly convention only' that Christ shares in the otherness of God. That is to

say, it is not by clinging to an exalted, divine being, but by emptying himself of

being that Christ mirrors the divine and is one with the silent Father.

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 The Incarnation is not a synthesis of two natures, for as Chalcedon

teaches, each remains distinct and there is no commingling between them.15

Christ is God not as if God made a visit to earth. That is religious science

fiction. Rather, he is the son of God as the sacramental sign of the otherness

of Abba, identified with the reality of what is signified and lying at the

deepest levels of our human consciousnesses. As the sacrament of our

encounter with God, Jesus is not a second subject alongside God.16 The words

and mediation of Christ do not lead directly toward the summit of the

Godhead, but embody, as do all words and symbols, a deeply conventional

understanding of the limits of the conventional, i.e., of the unknowability of

the silent Father.

It is, I think, such an idea that lies behind the Patristic distinction

between theology and economy, for what we know of God is what has been

conventionally revealed within our cultures through the cultural models

15
The Council of Chalcedon proclaimed÷ "Following, then, the holy Fathers, we
all with one voice teach that it should be confessed that Our Lord Jesus Christ is
one and the same Son, the Same perfect in Godhead, the Same perfect in
manhood, truly God and truly man, the Same consisting of a rational soul and a
body, homoousios with the Father as to his Godhead, and the Same h o m o o u s i o s
with us as to his manhood, in all things like unto us, sin only excepted,
begotten of the Father before all ages as to his Godhead, and in the last days,
the Same, for us and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin T h e o t o k o s as to his
manhood, One and the Same Christ, Son, Lord, Only begotten, made known in
two natures which exist without confusion, without change, without division,
without separation, the difference of the natures having been in no wise
taken away by reason of the union, but rather the properties of each being
preserved, and both concurring into one Person (prosopon ) and one
h y p o s t a s i s - not parted or divided into two persons (prosopa ), but one and the
same Son and Only-begotten, the divine Logos, the Lord Jesus Christ, even as
the prophets from of old have spoken concerning him, and as the Lord Jesus
Christ himself has taught us, and as the Symbol of the Fathers has delivered to
us.' Quoted from the translation of Aloys Grillmeier, Christ in Christian
Tradition÷ From the Apostolic Age to Chalcedon 451. (Atlanta: John Knox, 1965)
544.
16
The theme of Edward Schillebeecxk, Christ÷ The Sacrament of the Encounter
with God (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963).

21
available to us.17 That knowledge is truly and even infallibly authentic

because it harmonizes with the foundational experiences of the Lord Christ

and of numerous Christians who follow in this path. It is, however, never

unchanging and absolute, for that is the mark of inauthenticity and deluded

imagination.18 About theology, we know nothing, for we have no words that

correspond to God. Correspondential knowing relates to the economic

disposition of human life, to our experience of Abba and our commitment to

carry forth the rule of justice and peace, but it cannot stand under the scrutiny

of the true reasoning of emptiness that deconstructs all models of God and

leaves us, like Moses, in the darkness of direct contact.

It is then in hiding God from view by our conventional descriptions

(saµv®ti from the root v®, to cover over ) that Christ manifests ( saµv®ti from

the root v®t, to manifest) the otherness of God.19 And it is in disappearing in

the face of Abba and the rule of God that Jesus embodies the reality of God in

himself and for us. Christology need not then function within its accustomed

essentialist framework. There is no necessity to try to reconcile both human

and divine characteristics in the one person of Christ. The doctrine of the

sharing of properties (communicatio idiomatum ) tried to explain how the

17
See George L. Prestige, God in Patristic Thought (Toronto: W. Heinemann,
1936) 98-102 on the divine "economy'. and John P. Keenan, The Meaning of
Christ: A Mahåyåna Theology (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1990) 221-259.
18
There are Mahåyåna parallels for the Roman Catholic doctrine of
infallibility. The Analysis of the Middle Path and Extremes presents an
explanation of ultimate meaning that includes the path as "unerring full
perfection" (a v i p a r y å s a - p a r i n i ≈ p a t t i ) inasmuch as it follows and harmonizes
with suchness. See Nagao Gadjin, The Foundational Standpoint of Ma\dhyamika
Philosophy (New York: SUNY, 1989), 62. The idea here is that when a worldly
and conventional statement functions in accord with logical criteria and in
full awareness of emptiness, then it cannot err because it neither attempts to
express an absolute statement nor refuses to construct contextual statements.
19
See Nagao, The Foundational Standpoint 39-42. This volume is the source for
most of the Mahåyåna ideas presented above.

22
properties of each nature of Christ can be attributed to the same person, but

that attempt was never satisfactory. One was left with a notion of Christ as

being able to shift natures as one might shift gears. A Mahåyåna christology,

refusing to move in that essentialistic framework, has no need to appeal to

such explanations, for it is in his fully and completely human identity that

Christ is God. As embodying dependent co-arising, Jesus is empty of essence.

As fully conventional, Jesus manifests the ultimacy of God.

CONCLUSION

These terms may sound minimalist to a person accustomed to thinking in

essences. They seem to negate the divine essence of Christ. Indeed, they do,

but they also negate his human nature. A Mahåyåna theology is content to

say much less, while suggesting ever-new aspects of the person of Christ as

called for within different contexts and cultures. But, within this particular

philosophical approach, these two terms of emptiness and dependent co-

arising, along with the doctrine of the two truths of ultimate meaning and

worldly convention, signify the deepest levels of meaning. Emptiness is not

merely a negation of essence. It is synonymous with the highest reality of

awakening, experienced immediately and directly. Dependent co-arising is not

a second best status, but the concrete entailment of emptiness. Ultimate

meaning is not the possession of anyone and cannot be attributed to any

essence, however august. It is the empty content of awakening, moving

spontaneously toward conventional reengagement in the dependently co-

arising world to carry out the tasks of compassion.

The use of Mahåyåna philosophy as a handmaid for Christian theology

does indeed issue in a different theology, a different understanding of the

23
Gospel confession of Christ as embodying the presence of God. It can be

recommended, I think, because it is grounded upon the mind of faith and

moves to the center the apophatic thinking of the Christian mystic tradition.

It avoids the conundrums of essentialist theology, always in danger of falling

to one side or the other and always teetering on the point of presenting a

schizophrenic picture of the Lord. Further, it issues in the possibility of a

rigorously performed theology of the Incarnation.

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